Ohio Man Sentenced to 20 Years for Hate Crimes

22-year-old Izaye Eubanks was sentenced to 20 years in prison for hate crimes.Photo byWHIO-TV7/Cox Media Group

SPRINGFIELD, OH

On December 5th, 2023, 22-year-old Izaye Yahim Eubanks was sentenced to 20 years in prison for federal and state crimes. Eubanks confessed to various hate crimes against eight Haitian nationals. In August he pleaded guilty in the U.S. District Court and Clark County Common Pleas Court to charges stemming from January and February assaults, robberies, and a carjacking of Haitian nationals. Eubanks crimes against the Haitian individuals were motivated because of the victim’s actual or perceived nationality, according to court documents.

Court documents said that Eubanks would travel throughout Springfield looking for people he thought were of Haitian origin and attack them, usually by punching them and knocking them to the ground before robbing them of their money, cell phones, and other personal belongings. One of the attacks, he pulled the victim out of his vehicle, punching him in the face before stealing the vehicle.

On January 29th, 2023, Eubanks attacked a victim and then robbed them, while they were walking to wire $300 cash to their mother in Haiti. According to court documents, Eubanks punched the victim in the back of the head and neck, causing the victim to black out before he robbed him.

On the same day of January 29th, Eubanks assaulted another victim, he attacked a man as he left Friendly’s Bankery, a Haitian market.

On February 1st, 2023, Eubanks directed a group of juveniles to assist him in his crimes. He had them help him commit four separate attacks on a total of five victims. The case was investigated FBI Cincinnati Field Office, while the assistant U.S. Attorneys Amy M. Smith and Ryan A. Saunders for the Southern District of Ohio prosecuted the case.

“Attacks like these, where a group of individuals is singled out and targeted for violent assaultive conduct because of who they are, will not be tolerated,” The Justice Department will continue to enforce our federal criminal civil rights laws and prosecute those who commit violent, bias-motivated crimes in our country,” Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said.

According to the Department of Justice, Eubanks will serve his federal sentence concurrently to his state sentence handed down by the Clark County Court of Common Pleas. He pleaded guilty to five counts of second degree felonious robbery in his Clark County proceedings. Eubanks was sentenced to four years in state prison for each robbery count.